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Finding light in Zim's darkness

IOL

December 24 2005 at
10:16AM

By Peta Thornycroft

Harare - When you've been
living here long enough, you learn to look on the bright side of
life.

There was no electricity at Harare's international airport
one day last week. That was a relief.

"We can't scan passports
today," said a grinning immigration officer. His scanner is linked to a
government data bank of passport information of all arrivals and
departures.

I was struck by the extraordinary
contrast A few days earlier President Robert Mugabe's officials had
begun withdrawing passports from "enemies of the state" - publisher Trevor
Ncube, opposition politician Paul Themba Nyathi, and trade unionist Raymond
Majongwe.

Unusually, the Central Intelligence Organisation
operative otherwise permanently stationed at the entrance to the immigration
hall to scrutinise passports wasn't at his post. So that afternoon,
travellers had a relaxed passage through the airport as rain clouds
gathered.

Scanning equipment was installed at the
airport three months ago after Mugabe signed a constitutional amendment
which allows him to cancel passports or refuse to issue them to citizens he
doesn't like.

A few days earlier the electricity went off during
Mugabe's annual state of the nation address.

That was also a
relief.

Rain fell in sheets that afternoon and kept the city dark
throughout the night. The Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority, Zesa, not
so long ago the best-run power utility in Africa, is now so broke it cannot
keep the lights on in central Harare.

As I drove west across
the city for a United Nations press conference that evening, Harare looked
desolate.

Yet as their city crumbles, most Hararians remain stoic
and disciplined. Even on dark wet streets without traffic lights there were
no car accidents in central Harare that night as people are so used to
policing themselves at intersections.

Driving past Mugabe's
official residence in bright sunlight the next morning, I was struck by the
extraordinary contrast between his world and that of his
people.

There are no potholes on that stretch of road.

Banks of shrubs and neatly-clipped lawns edge the high walls around his
residence and a series of boreholes powered by a generator keep the
sprinklers twitching merrily in the mid-day heat.

Maybe he
doesn't see the decay through the tinted windows of his armour-plated
stretched limo.

Tsvangirai expelled amid MDC 'circus'

SABC

December 24, 2005,
18:00

As the circus in Zimbabwe's opposition Movement for Democratic
Change continues, Morgan Tsvangirai, the MDC president, has been expelled
from the party he founded six years ago. The MDC has given Robert Mugabe,
the Zimbabwean president, the toughest challenge in his 25 year
rule.

According to Gift Chimanikire, the deputy secretary-general, the
fate follows misrepresenting the outcome of October's national council
meeting, which resolved to participate in last month's senate
elections.

Tsvangirai, who opposed participation in the elections,
announced that there was a stalemate when in reality, the vote was 33-31
against him. Also expelled is Isaac Matongo, his sympathiser, who is also
the national chairperson.

Tsvangirai remains legitimate
leaderHowever, Tsvangirai is not bowing down without a fight. William Bango,
his spokesperson, has dismissed the expulsion saying the displinary
committee was not properly constituted and as far as the party is concerned,
Tsvangirai remains the legitimate leader of the party.

Two weeks ago,
the high court nullified attempts to suspend Tsvangirai, saying only the
party's congress had the right to do so.

Now, both factions are claiming
to be organising the congress due next February. Analysts are ruling out the
possibility of reconciliation and the stage appears set for a wrangle on who
uses the name MDC

Zim faces bleak Christmas as crisis bites

IOL

December 23
2005 at 08:29PM

By Angus Shaw

Harare - Sculptor Frank
Bute camps in the gully of a foul-smelling stream beside a golf course. His
market stall was demolished in a clampdown against traders earlier this
year, and he and the other 700 000 people who lost their homes or
livelihoods face a bleak Christmas.

For a decade, Bute, 49, ran a
small but viable business selling his stone carvings and baskets woven by
his wife at a roadside market in the Newlands district of
Harare.

"Now I have nothing," he said.

But even those
whose homes survived the government demolition blitz are struggling in a
country where the purchasing power of the local currency has declined so
much that the price of a brand new locally assembled car in 1997 now buys
two packets of pet food.

Jeffrey Gogo, a financial analyst writing
in the state media on Friday, said poverty eradicated traditional holiday
cheer, feasting and gift-giving to mark the birth of Christ this
year.

"It is still worthwhile to celebrate
Christmas on half empty stomachs because our faith compels us to do so," he
said.

Charity groups and care givers say white retirees whose adult
children have left the country in an exodus from economic and political
turmoil have been hard hit. The state central bank estimates about 3,4
million Zimbabweans, many of them skilled professionals, have
left.

Some retirees receive monthly pensions of as little as Z$40
000 (R2,55), enough for a single loaf of bread in a nation facing spiralling
annual inflation, running at 502 percent, one of the highest rates in the
world.

One white-haired retiree, who asked not to be named,
bought all she could afford - two eggs and two tomatoes - for the festive
season.

In the run-up to the Christmas
holidays, Bute said he guarded cars - and "I beg, borrow and steal" - around
a suburban shopping centre.

Bute's market stall and nearby dwelling
was targeted in mass evictions known in the local Shona language as
Operation Murambatsvina, or "clear out trash". President Robert Mugabe's
autocratic government insisted the program was slum clearance across the
country aimed at eradicating disease and thwarting black market trading in
the ailing economy.

Bute said he pleaded with police to allow him
to remove his wares before bulldozers rumbled through the market in June,
reducing his stall and its contents to fragments and rubble.

"Yes, I am angry, but what can I do? They have the power," he said.

An estimated 700 000 people lost their homes and livelihoods in May and June
and thousands of families were still living in the open as torrential
seasonal rains began in November, collapsing sanitary services amid
worsening power and water outages and mounting heaps of uncollected
garbage.

Acute shortages of food, gasoline and essential
imports have been blamed on the disruptions in the agriculture-based economy
since the often violent seizures of thousands of white-owned commercial
farms began in 2000.

About a quarter of the 12,5 million population
are currently in need of emergency food aid and 70 percent of families can
only have one meal a day, according to United Nations
estimates.

In the last decade, the value of the Zimbabwe currency
plunged from Z$8 to the US dollar to Z$80 000 to $1.

Music
stores reported little interest from Christmas shoppers in a new compilation
on CD of Mugabe's political speeches. - Sapa-AP

Government Fails To Pay Operation Garikai
Contractors

Zim Daily

Saturday, December 24 2005 @ 03:42 AM
GMT Contributed by: Reporter The beleguared
government of Zimbabwe has embarked in a crusade to woo aborted Operation
Garikai/ Hlalani Kuhle workers into rejoining the housing project. This
comes after workers and service providers contracted countrywide quit the
project citing non-payment. In a bid to save its battered international
image, the government through the ministry of local government and urban
development called on all the workers to come to designated points to get
their outstanding payments for the past two months.

Operation
Garikai was launched as a follow-up corrective measure after the infamous
Operation Murambatsvina. The government failed to maintain it due to
financial constraints. President Robert Mugabe and Minister of Local
government, Dr Ignatius Chombo are on record spurning international
assistance. Jan Egeland, recent UN envoy to Zimbabwe was ridiculed for
mooting ways to assist the broke nation. Egeland has since asked the UN to
intervene in the humanitarian crisis besetting the country of
Zimbabwe.

Humanitarian experts have accused the government of
Zimbabwe for its tough stance on the crisis.

Chief Police Spokesman Kills 10 Year-Old
Boy

Zimbabwe's chief police
spokesman Assistant Commissioner Wayne Bvudzijena has killed a 10 year old
boy in Chitungwiza after running him over by his car. Instead of rushing the
victim to a hospital, Bvudzijena, who onlookers said was drunk, dumped him
at a secluded spot to die. The incident took place early Wednesday morning
when Nyasha Chikwira was having tea at a stall in front of his father's
house.

Around 7.30 am, Bvudzijena's speeding white car veered
off the road and scathed a makeshift stall destroyed during operation
Murambatsvina. The ten-year old boy was hit head on and he flew about 10
metres in the air due to the impact. He fell on a large stone being used for
construction lying in one corner of the stall. One of his legs was fractured
and his head hit the stone. The boy, according to onlookers, was breathing
heavily when Bvudzijena got off the car and picked him
up.

"He (Bvudzijena) was unscathed and while we were still
calling for help from nearby houses, he backed the car, which had entered
the stall, and fled with him in the back seat. Initially we thought that
they were taking him to hospital,'' said, an eye witness. Pointing to
splashes of blood all over the ramshackle stall, the witness told zimdaily
he too was sitting beside the stall when the car crashed into it. ''The
stall came down completely with the impact,'' he added. Three hours after
the incident, the boy's body was found in a field near Unit B in
Chitungwiza. The police later arrived and sent the body for postmortem,
examination.

Bvudzijena yesterday declined comment. But the
father of the boy told zimdaily that the chief police spokesperson had
promised to have an out of court settlement and to foot the funeral
arrangements. Shocked mourners were still gathered at the boy's Chitungwiza
home late yesterday.

Turkey Sends Financial Aid To Four African
Countries

Turkish Press

Published: 12/23/2005

ANKARA - After a call from World
Food Program (WFP), Turkey sent 500 thousand USD to Zimbabwe, Malawi,
Mozambique and Zambia, Turkish MFA said on Wednesday.Releasing a
statement, MFA said the Turkish government decided to earmark 200 thousand
USD to Zimbabwe, and 300 thousand USD for Malawi, Mozambique and Zambia
within, the scope of WFP's aid program.

The statement said, ''World Food
Program said 4.3 million people in Zimbabwe, 2.9 million people in Malawi,
one million people in Mozambique and one million people in Zambia were
reported to be in need of the urgent assistance to be provided by the WFP
because of the low agricultural production caused by drought, chronicle
poverty and socio-economic collapse caused by wide spread HIV/AIDS
disease.''

''Our country, which was eulogized with its contributions to
efforts to find solution to humanitarian problems in Africa, was closely
interested in WFP's call. The Turkish government decided to extend 500
thousand USD financial aid to Zimbabwe, Malawi, Mozambique, and Zambia,''
the statement indicated.

The statement also recalled that Turkey
displayed humanitarian interest in front of starvation problem in western
Africa and earmarked 1.8 million USD for Nigeria, Mali, Mauritania, Burkina
Faso, Sierra Leone and Guinea.

Q&A: LAND REFORM: Land Reform Revisited

By LIONEL
BEEHNERPublished: December 24, 2005From the Council on Foreign
Relations, December 24, 2005

Lionel Beehner is a staff writer for the
Council on Foreign Relations website, cfr.org.Introduction

Land
is a sensitive, even sacred, issue in many parts of the world. "I shall
never sell the land! Bit by bit, I will dig up the fields and feed the earth
itself to the children and when they die I will bury them in the land, and I
and my wife and my old father, even he, we will die on the land that has
given us birth." This sentiment, expressed by Pearl S. Buck in 1932's The
Good Earth, remains a strongly held conviction among farmers today. The
challenge of fairly distributing land that, for historical or political
reasons, has been concentrated in the hands of a few wealthy owners has been
around for centuries, and demands for land redistribution echoed across what
used to be known as the "Third World" throughout the Cold War. Now, those
demands are back, and in their latest form, they are no less challenging
from a political, cultural, and economic perspective.

What is land
reform?

At its essence, land reform is about redistributing arable land,
whether previously collectivized by the state or held by rich farmers. The
distribution usually proposes to take from the rich and give to the poor.
The process sometimes involves compensation schemes, but in many places,
farmers are forced by the government to give up their land at prices the
owners regard as unfair. Other times, large-scale landowners are simply
evicted without their consent. The goals of land reform are multifold:
reducing poverty, expanding rural development, or returning land to its
previous owners. Often, land reform is a consequence of post-colonial or
post-communist economic and social needs. Other times it is driven more by
ethnic and racial divisions, or an interest in manipulating political
sentiment, than by any desire to redistribute land equitably. Most rich
landowners in southern Africa, for example, are white, while most landless
people are black. Zimbabwe's government has pursued land reform with a
punitive tone. South Africa, which began its land reforms in earnest only in
2005, has been more cautious, fearing the economic damage that the flight of
white farmers could bring.

What is the history of land
reform?

Land reform dates back to Roman times and the agrarian laws
passed by the Senate around 133 BC, which indirectly led to the undoing of
the Roman Republic and presaged the emergence of feudalism. In more modern
times, land reform has often followed revolutions in countries like Mexico
(1917), Russia (1917), and China (1949). Later, it was coupled with
decolonization in the developing world, particularly in African and Arab
states. Land reform has also caused instability and even foreign
intervention, as in Guatemala in 1954, when the United States helped
overthrow an elected government because "its land-reform initiatives were
unacceptable to American capital," said Julia Sweig, director of Latin
American Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.

What are some
different types of land reform?

According to Joshua Muldavin, professor
of human geography and rural development at Sarah Lawrence College,
land-reform movements generally fall under two categories: transformational
and populist. Transformational reform, he says, "is not just about breaking
up concentrated land holdings or redistributing land but about breaking down
the systems that created them, like feudalism, communism, or capitalism."
Populist reform, on the other hand, focuses solely on breaking up large land
holdings to redistribute to small holders. "It's a policy shift, not
structural," he says. "Governments do it in response to rural unrest, or to
undermine revolutionary movements that challenge the state." Often after
populist land reforms there is a re-concentration of land holdings, which
then requires another round of land redistribution.

Does land reform
generally work?

That depends on the region. It has a poor record in
places like sub-Saharan Africa, where it has led to lower output and even
greater inequality. On the other hand, land reform was successful in Japan,
South Korea, and in pockets of India One reason land reforms faltered in
Africa is that land was often seized from skilled farmers and handed to
unskilled ones. Another problem, Muldavin says, is that the land most often
redistributed to the poor is the lowest quality and least arable land
available, which leads to lower agricultural output, leaving poor peasants
open to criticism for poor farming practices. Further, many of the land
holdings are not redistributed to the poor but to political cronies with
little farming experience--so called "cell phone farmers." There are a
number of other impediments to land reform, including climate, the rising
costs of farm production, and the volatility of global agricultural
prices.

Where have land reforms recently been enacted?

a..
Asia. Land reform has had some success in Asian countries. In Taiwan, for
instance, land was confiscated from absentee landlords and given to small
landowners. South Korea, Japan and parts of India enacted reforms that are
also viewed as successful by experts. In China, land reform went through a
series of stages, the most infamous of which is the harsh collectivization
under Mao Zedong in the 1950s which helped create an artificial famine that
killed some 30 million people. Muldavin argues that the redistribution of
large-scale collective farms - i.e., "de-collectivization" that occurred in
China during the late 1970s, had mixed effects. On the one hand, it created
"noodle-strip farms"--named because of their narrow size--which initially
increased productivity. But it also led to loss of economies of scale and to
land degradation. The resulting stagnation in China now threatens the
continuation of its current economic boom, experts say. While most peasants
still have access to small subsistence plots, Muldavin says a new wave of
landlessness in China, approaching 70 million peasants, is a serious
challenge to the state's legitimacy. In other South Asian countries like the
Philippines, on the other hand, most of the country's arable land remains in
the hands of a few politically connected farmers. b.. Former Soviet
Union. In Russia, where a land-reform bill set off fisticuffs on the floor
of the Duma in the mid-1990s, private land ownership remains a controversial
subject. According to the Economist, "it exists in theory, not in practice."
Formerly collectivized land has been handed out to around 280,000 families
since the early 1990s. Many farmers, however, chose to remain on the
Kremlin-run cooperatives because the large size of the farms--roughly 100
acres (versus an average of two acres in China)--meant it was virtually
impossible to till without some state assistance, says Roy Prosterman,
founder of the University of Washington's Rural Development Institute.
Opposition to a land-reform bill in Kazakhstan was so great it led to the
ouster of the country's prime minister two years ago. c.. Africa. On the
issue of land reform, "there has not been much to cheer about," said Peter
Honey, associate editor of the South Africa-based Financial Mail, in an
interview with PBS NewsHour. Land reform has occurred in a number of
post-colonial countries, including Malawi, Zimbabwe, Namibia, and South
Africa. One of its main purposes was to reverse past land seizures
perpetuated against indigenous populations during colonial times. "There was
a moral and legal reason to do it, but you don't want to ruin your economy
and you want to properly compensate the owners of the land," says Tom
McDonald, partner at the law firm Baker & Hostetler and former U.S.
ambassador to Zimbabwe. Honey says the most successful cases on the
continent involved farms where white farmers were retained to train the new
black landowners. d.. Latin America. Experts say one of the main
problems with land reform in Latin America, particularly in places like
Brazil, is that only around 20 percent of the workforce remains
agricultural. "Most of the population has moved to cities and transplanted
the rural problems of poverty to an urban setting," Prosterman says.
"Brazilians would have been far better off carrying out a comprehensive
land-reform package a generation ago," before the problems of crime, drugs,
and poverty crept into their cities. Still, since about 1 percent of
Brazil's population owns half of the country's arable land, the issue has
continued to bubble to the surface--including last May, when it sparked two
weeks of protests. In Venezuela-- where nine of ten Venezuelans live in
cities--President Hugo Chavez has announced plans to seize some 3.7 million
acres of "idle" land and redistribute it to 100,000 small farmers, or
campesinos. Bolivia's newly elected Evo Morales, a leftist, intends to speed
up land reform; nine years after its last legislation on the issue, just 17
percent of 107 million hectares have been redistributed.

Why has land
reform largely failed in southern Africa?

In places like Zimbabwe,
once Africa's bread basket, out of 4,500 farms confiscated by the state in
recent years, only a few hundred remain fully operational. "Land reform was
basically hijacked as a political weapon [for Robert Mugabe's regime] to
hold onto power," McDonald says. "It's unfortunate because what we've seen
is the devastation of their economy." Many of the white farmers whose lands
were seized were never compensated because the state could not--or would
not--come up with the money. Part of the blame lies with the international
community, Muldavin says. "There's certainly been a failure on the part of
large financial institutions like the World Bank and first-world countries
to come through with the level of compensation promised to help buy up these
large landholdings for redistribution to landless farmers," he
says.

The biggest victims of Zimbabwe's land reforms were black
Zimbabweans, 90,000 of whom lost their farming jobs, writes Joshua
Kurlantzick in The New Republic. "Mugabe has seized nearly 11 million
hectares of land, much of which has gone to his political supporters," he
writes. Others say the "willing-seller, willing-buyer" program popular among
sub-Saharan African countries has not proceeded fast enough, partly because
white farmers have artificially inflated the price of their landholdings,
making them virtually impossible to purchase. Only 4 percent of South
Africa's arable land, for instance, has been redistributed since 1994. In
October, the government served its first seizure order to a white farmer;
Pretoria says it plans to redistribute 30 percent of commercial farmland by
2015. Malawi only began major land reform in 2002.

African human rights commission approves
resolutions

Angola
Press

Dakar, Senegal, 12/24 -
The 38th session of the African Commission on Human and People`s Rights
(ACHPR) held from 21 November to 5 December in Banjul, where the institution
is based, condemned in its resolutions serious human rights violations in
Zimbabwe, Ethiopia and Sudan.

In a
statement issued to PANA in Dakar on Friday, the International Federation of
Human Rights (IFHR) commended the commission`s
resolutions.

The IFHR applauded that the
ACHPR "finally took its responsibilities as an institution for the promotion
and protection of human rights on the continent, and called for the fight
against impunity for the most serious crimes perpetrated on the continent by
supporting the work of the International Criminal Court and the setting up
of the African Court."

During the session,
the ACHPR adopted 17 resolutions, most of which referred to concerns raised
by the IFHR, the statement said, adding that the Commission celebrated the
coming into force, on 25 November, of the Protocol to the African Charter on
Human and People`s Rights relating to women`s rights in Africa, by adopting
a resolution calling on African States to fully ratify the
instrument.

The release urged the
continent`s countries to integrate the provisions of the Protocol into their
national law and immediately repeal any law, policy or practice that
discriminates against women.

Meanwhile,
the ACHPR adopted an important resolution for effective operation of the
Working Group on the death penalty set up at the 37th
session.

During the 38th session, the
Commission stressed "trends in international law encouraging the abolition
of the death penalty" and decided to strengthen the mandate of the Working
Group through a "concept paper on death penalty in Africa" and a strategic
plan on the abolition of the death
penalty.

On the situation in Zimbabwe, the
IFHR noted that the Commission became the first institution of the African
Union to strongly denounce "continuous violations and deterioration of the
human rights situation, defiance of the rule of law and the growing culture
of impunity.

"The commissioners condemned
violations of basic rights resulting from forced expulsions organised by the
government and demanded that the perpetrators be brought to justice without
delay."

They also called for a
reform of repressive and liberticidal laws, notably the law on public order
and security, and demanded the observance of the principle of separation of
powers.

The ACHPR also discussed human
rights violations in Ethiopia. The commission adopted a resolution recalling
the bloody suppression by security forces in June and November 2005 of
demonstrations against the results of parliamentary elections, as well as
arbitrary arrests and detention.

The
commission called on Ethiopian authorities to "release political prisoners,
journalists and human rights advocates" and guarantee a fair trial to the
people accused.

It also demanded that "the
independence and impartiality of the national Commission of Inquiry into
human rights violations be guaranteed" and that the perpetrators be brought
to book.

Meanwhile, the commissioners
condemned the "continuous detention of former ministers, parliamentarians
and journalists for several years" in
Eritrea.

The ACHPR also condemned
serious human rights violations in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda
and the western Sudan region of Darfur.

The commissioners recalled that violations in the last three countries could
be described as crimes under the jurisdiction of the International Criminal
Court (ICC), a position approved by the IFHR.